A Homophone Worth Fighting For —

“Gaymer” trademark has to go, say reddit’s gay gamers

Gamers team up with EFF, file petition to cancel trademark.

The discussion at the /r/gaymers section of Reddit usually centers around video games, not legal actions. Today things were different, though. The group of gay and lesbian gamers that congregates there has filed a petition at the US Patent and Trademark Office. They're seeking to cancel a trademark on the word "gaymer"—a word they say belongs in the public domain.

The "gaymer" trademark is claimed by Chris Vizzini, who also blogs at his website, gaymer.org. Vizzini sent a cease-and-desist letter to reddit complaining about the /r/gaymers subreddit. That got the group's attention and caused it to lawyer up. /r/gaymers now has pro bono lawyers from a major law firm, Perkins Coie, as well as from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The purpose of trademark law is to protect consumers by making sure they know the true origin of goods and services. The /r/gamers petition, prepared by lawyers at Perkins Coie and EFF, argues that Vizzini's trademark is a distortion of the law's purpose and should be canceled.

"This registration should never have been granted," said EFF lawyer Corynne McSherry in a statement today. "Gaymer is a common term that refers to members of this vibrant gaming community, and we are happy to help them fight back and make sure the term goes back to the public domain where it belongs."

The gaymer community is indeed a vibrant and growing one. This August, the GaymerX convention (formerly called GaymerCon) will take place in San Francisco, with the intent of pushing back against some of the homophobia in gaming culture.

The /r/gaymers petition [PDF] notes that gaymer is a term that has been in use since the mid-1990s. That greatly predates Vizzini's use of the term; he set up his gaymer.org website in 2005 and applied for a trademark in 2007.

reddit user Ozuri explained the decision to fight the "gaymer" trademark in a post today, which reads in part:

I'm older than most of you, and I grew up in an age when being a nerd was not a synonym for tech savvy entrepreneur with a high-paying job at Google; it meant social stigma, awkward interactions with peers and coming in last on the day we ran laps. Coupled with the crippling anxiety of being gay (and for me, being from an evangelical Christian background), being a gay nerd who loved video games was the proverbial hat trick of otherness...

For me, it is the marrying of my hobby and a part of my identity that allowed me to grow into my own as an adult. I am a gaymer.

Mr. Vizzini, you keep using the word 'gaymer.' I do not think it means what you think it means. To the rest of us, it means community. It means pride in our differentness and our small community. It means inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness.

The dude who registered the 'gaymer' trademark, his last name is Vizzini.

In the last paragraph of the story, Reddit user Ozuri seizes this to his advantage in his argument why the trademark should be stricken, weaving in Inigo Montoya's "I do not think it means what you think it means" quip to that Vizzini from The Princess Bride.

Why is gaymer a word? Do we need to differentiate people? A gamer is a gamer, your sex, skin color or sexual preference shouldn't matter. It just segregates us all.

Abresh wrote:

Some people like being segregated, DSF1942. It allows them to think that they are 'better' than someone else.

Or it could help them easily find other people who share their interests, traits, views and experiences. Or it could be about offering support for a traditionally scorned and vilified minority. Or it could serve to highlight a social issue that won't get solved by pretending it doesn't exist. Or it could be about "inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness."

Why is gaymer a word? Do we need to differentiate people? A gamer is a gamer, your sex, skin color or sexual preference shouldn't matter. It just segregates us all.

Why is "gamer" a word? Do we need to differentiate people? A person is a person, your sex, skin color, sexual preference, or hobby shouldn't matter. It just segregates us all.

----------See how that works? Gaymer is a word because those who use it think it a good way to both *describe* their sexuality and their hobby (things which they have possibly been ostracized for in the past, the latter moreso than the former, unfortunately) and help them identify other like-minded or -situationed individuals.

It's not segregation for people with similar likes, tastes, hobbies, and other preferences to get together. It's not segregation to give themselves a name. It's segregation when they come up with arbitrary reasons to exclude others from their communities.

Are the gaymers excluding straight people from playing games with them or from discussing topics with them on their sub-reddit thingy? Then giving themselves an identifying name to go by is not segregation. It's a useful descriptor.

Why is gaymer a word? Do we need to differentiate people? A gamer is a gamer, your sex, skin color or sexual preference shouldn't matter. It just segregates us all.

you and I may not care if the people we're playing with are male, female, gay, transgender, or whatever, but there's enough horrible bigots out there that the non-white-heterosexual-male crowd feels the need to create their own safe space where they can avoid all the vile, contemptible nonsense from the general public.

Which I have never heard of until this article, so how "common" is it really? I don't see their defense having very much traction.

And while I don't support litigation trolling of this nature (is Vizzini actually doing anything with his "gaymer" trademark?), I also don't care about them using the word. It's one of those silly post-Internet online-only words. You know, the kind that are pronounced exactly like some other word, so it's virtually impossible to have an actual human conversation using the word. The only place the word exists is in text.

I honestly cannot decide who is in the right on this. I see arguments for both sides. I don't think its as cut and dried as the Reddit community wishes to believe, but he probably should have thought about it more before sending a cease and desist.

On one hand, I've never heard of "gaymer" prior to this article. I'm not exactly riding the forefront of what's popular in my rapid progression to sitting on the porch yelling at kids to get off my lawn, but to me it's not common parlance.

On the other, registering a trademark on that for the purpose of a blog? Lame.

Is the guy pushing a product or service called 'Gaymer'? If he's not, I really don't like the idea of him having control on the term, much in the same fashion as some of the ridiculous bullying that facebook has become known for with plays off of their name and its derivative words.

Is the guy pushing a product or service called 'Gaymer'? If he's not, I really don't like the idea of him having control on the term, much in the same fashion as some of the ridiculous bullying that facebook has become known for with plays off of their name and its derivative words.

I agree, but even if he is pushing a product or service, the use of the term is still questionable, and a bit douchy to co-opt it and then sue for infringement.

The recent "fake geek girl" fiasco drummed up a pretty established view that geeks can just be geeks, period, regardless of gender/race/orientation/etc. Don't differentiate, we're all a geek family. Borg, if you will.

But a subsection of the gay gamer community wants to purposefully segregate itself, and it just seems... I don't know, odd. I don't want to say inconsistent because there's no such thing as a one size fits all package for groups of people, but as a hetero (mostly white) male, it's just making me lose interest in these subgroups because I'm either guilty of not recognizing their differences or chastised for pointing them out in the first place.

Is the guy pushing a product or service called 'Gaymer'? If he's not, I really don't like the idea of him having control on the term, much in the same fashion as some of the ridiculous bullying that facebook has become known for with plays off of their name and its derivative words.

I agree, but even if he is pushing a product or service, the use of the term is still questionable, and a bit douchy to co-opt it and then sue for infringement.

Appropriation is a two-way street, though. Hegemony is just as capable and encouraged to do so as the downtrodden subset.

Before I go any further on that line of thought, though, I should probably ask/research into whether or not the trademark holder is gay.

But a subsection of the gay gamer community wants to purposefully segregate itself, and it just seems... I don't know, odd.

That probably indicates a misunderstanding on your part. It's like what the actual Redditor said about the term "gaymer," as quoted in the article, was missed.

ghost55 wrote:

Or something. Really guys? Reddit as a source for articles?

Yeah, it's not like a case that intersects the various IP abuse, geek culture, gaming, and internet community issues that Ars sometimes covers in Law and Disorder or anything! Clearly there's no story here worth bringing up. Reddit, M I RITE?

Why is gaymer a word? Do we need to differentiate people? A gamer is a gamer, your sex, skin color or sexual preference shouldn't matter. It just segregates us all.

I don't think that it should be somehow made into something special. However the word is just a good amalgamation of gay and gamer. The existence of gaymers should be accepted and game makers are should be aware of existence of a gaymer. Gaymer isn't really a massive thing.

But a subsection of the gay gamer community wants to purposefully segregate itself, and it just seems... I don't know, odd.

That probably indicates a misunderstanding on your part. It's like what the actual Redditor said about the term "gaymer," as quoted in the article, was missed.

I felt as though I understood what he was saying in the quoted passage, but it doesn't change the fact that they are looking at their group identity in a cloistered fashion, which is understandable for a subgroup (of a subgroup), whereas the recent fracas that arose from the fake geek girl meme came about because it marginalized women away from the geek label. To many this inconsistency in wanting to blend in/not wanting to blend in could be confusing, though obviously they don't need to adhere to labels to satisfy the categorizing needs of the majority. It just seems... I don't know, disconnected from the 'everybody' spirit that sprung up from the geek girl meme fallout.

For those of you who don't understand why gay gamers want their own might want their own subreddit, just spend any time on reddit in general and you'll see exactly why. You can see one anti-gay slur after another. /r/gaymers is a safe place for people to talk about games and whatever else gay gamers want to discuss, which is often- surprise- GUYS, and I doubt that's a topic that would really interest most heterosexual male gamers, now would it?

Damn, reading comprehension fail on my part. I thought he was being sued to prevent use of the word gaymer in a domain name. I reread the article and realized my earlier posts are full of fail. Sorry and no this seems stupid.

Edit: just so i don't come off like a total jackass my humble excuse is that I was multi-tabbing on the metro while also answering a call regarding a totally unrelated HR issue. While I had read the article something in my brain got crossed. I'm sorry for wasting comment space and I humbly will now go crawl in a hole. I reaally need a beer!

But a subsection of the gay gamer community wants to purposefully segregate itself, and it just seems... I don't know, odd. I don't want to say inconsistent because there's no such thing as a one size fits all package for groups of people, but as a hetero (mostly white) male, it's just making me lose interest in these subgroups because I'm either guilty of not recognizing their differences or chastised for pointing them out in the first place.

Segregate? How would you label a discussion for two gay men wanting to "get married" in Sims(or whatever) and couldn't? It's no more or less of a segregation than the word gamer itself.If different races or girls had the same specific interests like gaymers do, then they will create their own communities. Hell, there is a term and a community describing people the like Star Trek!!!

But a subsection of the gay gamer community wants to purposefully segregate itself, and it just seems... I don't know, odd.

That probably indicates a misunderstanding on your part. It's like what the actual Redditor said about the term "gaymer," as quoted in the article, was missed.

I felt as though I understood what he was saying in the quoted passage, but it doesn't change the fact that they are looking at their group identity in a cloistered fashion...

No they're not. You make it sound like they have built a fortress where straight gamers aren't welcome, and from which "gaymers" cannot leave to participate in the wider /r/gaming subreddit. You are not taking into account that "they" are describing this group as inclusive, the opposite of cloistered. You may be reading what is typed but you're not comprehending it. You don't seem to have actually visited the subreddit, which describes itself thusly:

Quote:

Gaymers is a community for LGBT and straight alliance redditors. We host frequent voice and/or video chat nights, regularly play multi-player games together, talk about how totally rugged David Hayter is, how sexy Samus is in her zero suit, talk about how we love big wii sessions, and playing with an xbox all night long.Expect to be offended by something you see here at least once.This is a community-based subreddit NOT solely dedicated to discussing gay themes in gaming.

It's pretty clear that the ideas you have about their intent, identity, and behavior are wrong.

Quote:

To many this inconsistency in wanting to blend in/not wanting to blend in could be confusing...

Some people like being segregated, DSF1942. It allows them to think that they are 'better' than someone else.

Why do they have a Gay Pride parade? What about Hetero Pride? Where's our parade?

What, where single white men walk down the street without fear of persecution? Oh, the last thousand years or so.

And don't forget Men's Rights! No, I'm not talking about helping us guys become aware of how a patriarchal society harms us as much as it does women by prescribing narrow roles and attitudes as acceptable and punishing deviations from these constructs, I'm talking about being able to keep things the way they are! Because upsetting the status quo, and the privilege I enjoy therein, threatens me!

Why is gaymer a word? Do we need to differentiate people? A gamer is a gamer, your sex, skin color or sexual preference shouldn't matter. It just segregates us all.

I wish it were so. My coming out attempts have always resulted in my heterosexual peers changing attitudes though. Not always, not even often, to aggression, but usually to belittling and shoehorning in some way or another. I think a lot of young males are afraid of guilt by association, and need to put some distance between "the gays" and themselves.